Ads suddenly appear and fill my screen

[pm-r]

Or at least boot up into Safe Boot Mode, at least to get some relief. And maybe do some checking and snooping around the Mac and users stuff.

Or what about just creating a new user and log into it a see how it works.

 

[nflder]

Here are the screen Photos

Here are two shots. One of the whole screen and one to let you see one square...

 

[pm-r]

No big deal or concern to me, it looks like you've just got a large webpage or something open on some older Bill Bryson AT HOME: A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE LIFE "BBC Audio" audio book.

BBC - Press Office - At Home read by author Bill Bryson on BBC Audiobook

At Home: A Short History of Private Life: Complete and Unabridged BBC Audio: Amazon.co.uk: Bill Bryson: Books

When it's selected and displayed, just hit your command+w keys to close the window. It should disappear if it's a webpage or photo window.

 

[nflder]

I'm really surprised pm-r that you would say "no big deal or concern". If this suddenly appeared on your machine and the square blocks were popping up and spinning around when I never went to that site or any other site with that type of page. Never saw nor searched before. Then I saw screen savers I never saw before AND just now I left the Mac for a few minutes and when I came back the following was scrolling across a black screen in large faded black letters in various fonts sizes...

envisage - - verb contemplate or Subjacent .... lodestar... Press the D to see more

Needless to say I didn't press the D!

This time however the iTunes was not running afterwords. Guess I'll have to do the reformat but I want to know where it is hiding out so we'll all know what this is.

 

[pm-r]

If you noticed, I said "No big deal or concern to me", and yes it can be unnerving when something unsuspected happens or starts happening, but the Mac will normally show the name at the top of a window as to what it is, and it can also let you know what application is running at the time and provides options to close the window or quit or force quit an app.

Maybe you could provide the name of the Application that's running when some of these phenomenons are occurring and the name in the window titlebar may help as well.

And if things get too out of control, a Force Quit can be enabled by holding down the command+option+esc keys. And maybe take note of what apps show and which one fixes the problem when quit.

 

[MacInWin]

Frankly, from the images and what you've described, it looks like someone has been pranking you on your Mac. Do you have anyone who may have access to your machine that has been around lately? Do you share the machine with anyone?

 

[nflder]

No one has access to this machine, it's only me! I really want to chase this thing down because it shows a vulnerably in my system and if it happens once it can happen again. How can I use Activity Monitor to locate it?

 

[pm-r]

I'd say your Mac is safe and I wouldn't worry about it and unless you got either the name from a window title bar, or what app or whatever was running at the time when it happened, you'll probably never know, and Activity Monitor won't be of any help at this point.

For all we know, it may have even been some cache file displaying itself which will will no doubt get purged if it hasn't been already. And maybe just restart anyway and help speed up the process and carry on.

 

[nflder]

I dug out my MacBook for dummies and I have to APOLOGIZE to everyone!!!!

I found out where all the Mac's screen savers are located and there we're all of the ones I've been seeing. For some reason the Mac decided to change to a set that I hadn't seen before.

Now I'll put back all the familiar screen photos that I saw when I first turned it on.

My face is red but I thank you all for trying to help a poor lost soul !!!!!

 

[pm-r]

I'm glad to hear you discovered the cause, and like out home builder had a habit of saying — sh*t happens!!

And yup, there's usually a reason for seemingly odd behaviour...

 

[SpkSnppr]

Have you tried

The Safe Mac

I've had excellent results using this.

 

[nflder]

For anyone reading this thread that would like some info as to how I found out what was going on I recommend they look at the settings in Mission Control. Look in System Preferences (located in the drop down from the apple on the top left of the screen) then Launchpad. On this window you will get a comprehensive explanation if you click the ? in the lower right hand corner. Hope this helps...

 

[cradom]

Have you tried

The Safe Mac

I've had excellent results using this.

Have you actually READ any of the posts? In particular, post 29?

 

[urbanman2004]

I use Adblock Plus and never been troubled with Ads. Give it a try. Open Safari preferences then Plugins and do a search and install it.

Yes sir, the OP def needs to give it a try. Its a Godsend